FBI Agent (Helping Careers)

This entry in the Cool Careers: Helping Careers series, designed for reluctant readers, profiles one of the more exciting jobs young people may ponder. But rather than reinforce the more glamorous aspects of what a child might think FBI agents do (catching the Al Capones of the world), this book offers a fairly even-handed account of what agents actually do, all the way from accounting and filing reports to engaging in high-tech surveillance and ballistics work. It also gives readers a brief overview of what educational and physical attributes it takes to become an agent and a run-through of the intensive 17-week training regimen. Throughout, crisp photographs depict agents as they perform their various tasks, and concise insets supply additional nuggets of information and quick takes on famous FBI cases, as well as a short history of the agency. A list pointing to additional reading and Web sites rounds out this title, which will help students who are beginning to consider taking their crime-solving skills from the playground into the real world. Grades 4-8. --Ian Chipman